With objective of achieving the goals of multi country Youth in Action project “Create Future with Creating Jobs”, a series of events were organized in Rajkot and Ahmedabad for Indian youth of both the cities. The programs were structured to bridge the gap between educational and professional paths of young people. Another objective of seminars was combating the youth unemployment through youth empowerment, skill development, mentoring, internships, volunteerism, employment and entrepreneurship at the same time. It is widely believed that gap between skills of the youth and demand from the industry is a major source of unemployment in India.

Three mega events were organized between 8th and 10th Feb, 2013 in Rajkot & Ahmedabad. For making this event enriching and to provide international context, Dan from Romania, Damla and Neslihan from Turkey travelled to India for sharing their knowledge and expertise.

Rajkot’s Grand open to all event was organized on 9th Feb in partnership with Om Shanti Engineering College (Sanjaybhai Rajguru College of Engineering) at city’s premier Neel’s City Club, providing the right backdrop. Almost 350 youth from entire city and surrounding lined up early to register. They came together with mindset of making future better with sharing and learning of hope, belief, dream, fighting fear, idea, entrepreneurship, skill development, innovation, and list is too long. It was half day conference focusing on the sessions, debate and discussion on creating a sustainable platform to engage youth for creating opportunities for their success.

Mr. Kaushal Mandalia, Director of Insight HR and Training Consultants and Dr Dharmesh Bhadja, President – Challenge : Future India Professional Chapter who also is Rajkot’s leading Homeopathic Consultant, explained the needs of enhancing skills for the youth. Mr. Jatin Kataria, Project Manager – European Union ‘Youth in Action’ and Board Member, Challenge Future Chapter Network enthused the crowd with tips and strategies to be successful in life.

A similar event was organized at the hall of Pandit Dindayal Petrolium University, Gandhinagar on 10th February. Students from School Petroleum Management and Liberal Arts participated in the event. The event was also attended by young entrepreneurs from Ahmedabad. Leading entrepreneur and social activist, Ruzan Khambatta also addressed the gathering. Her talk was on her own entrepreneurship learning.

On 8th February, grand seminar hall of Gardi Vidyapith on Kalawad Road, Rajkot became strategic venue partner for the event. More than 150 students from engineering and management from Gardi Vidpaith got learning from the same galaxy of international and national experts. “We really enjoyed the event. The feedback from students was very encouraging and they had great exposure through this seminar”, said Prashant Mehta, CEO of Gardi Vidyapith.

“Because of three very successful events youth have shown great interest in starting local chapters of Challenge Future both at Rajkot and Ahmedabad”, said Jatin Kataria. Adding to that lot of people have jumped onto the Challenge future global competition 2013 and logged on to the website www.challengefuture.org/competition